Cryptos continue to see investor-interest

The proposed Bill to ban private cryptocurrencies does not seem to have deterred investors. Players say that while there have been queries from investors on the possible ban, trading volumes continue to rise, largely due to the surge in Bitcoin prices.

“We saw our number of users and trading volume going up since the crypto Bill announcement. In fact, we just hit 40 lakh users on our platform and saw the highest trading volume in February,” said Vikram Rangala, Chief Marketing Officer, ZebPay.

While part of the volume is from short-term traders looking for quick profits when any market rallies, Rangala said the bigger trend is long-term investors who want to buy and hold for years and even decades, he further noted.

Sumit Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, CoinDCX, agreed, and said: “From the last quarter of 2020, we have been witnessing big investors and investment firms, who have been actively investing and allocating a sizable portion of cryptocurrency investments into their portfolios. This is more evident in the case of Bitcoin as it has now crossed the $61,000-mark recently.”

No anomaly

He further said that most exchanges have not seen any anomaly since the news of the ban. “We have, on the contrary, seen more adoption, with new users joining every day,” he said.

Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin, also said there hasn’t been any kind of decline in revenue, although prices have increased.

“When it comes to investments, it hasn’t really declined,” he said, adding that general questions will be there and we have to clearly inform them on the issue.

However, some retail investors have exited, as they do not want to wait until the Bill is introduced in Parliament, sources indicated.

The government had listed the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021, which seeks “to create a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The Bill also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India; however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses”.

Since then, domestic cryptocurrency players have been asking that the government should not go for a full ban, but should come out with regulations for the sector.

“Cryptocurrency has been generating jobs across a variety of functions in India and abroad. Given the scale and diversity, the good governance and regulation of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in India is critical and will give impetus to the Government of India’s Digital India vision,” said the Internet and Mobile Association of India in a recent statement.

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